


Rescue

by red_savage



Category: Marvel, Marvel 616
Genre: Cliche: Miles from Anywhere - Geographical isolation, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-30
Updated: 2010-08-30
Packaged: 2017-10-11 08:58:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/110658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/red_savage/pseuds/red_savage
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Armor is broken.  Tony is stranded.  Grave peril lurks in the Amazon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rescue

**Author's Note:**

> Beta: No beta was utilized, all typos belong to the dog.  
> This a nod to the old Tales of Suspense ...

"Never let be said that I didn't try to get away from it all now and then –"

Tony Stark is sitting in the middle of the Amazon rainforest in little more than his shorts. He looks sadly to the pile of metal that was his armor. Everything had been fine until Tony had decided to use a fallen tree for an ad hoc workbench. The fight with the giant robot had taken a toll on his armor and he needed to repair a couple of flight stabilizers before he could leave the rain forest with his newly acquired cargo. That's when the ants had found his chest plate, the giant robot, his armor and the tasty electric source of energy they all had running through them.

"No vacation is like this. Not a soul for miles. No room service. No phone calls."

Fortunately the insects had no appetite for titanium. Unfortunately, they could easily crawl into the spaces between the armor's control surfaces and the damage sections from the fight; which shouldn't have been a problem except the force fields were off-line. Inside they found materials they could happily nosh away at. The transistors went first, then other components. After the fact; Hank smugly told him they were some kind of freak species which was drawn to electricity.

"I've been in cooler saunas. Seriously, Pepper is going to kill me if I can't make it to the benefit this evening."

Well Hank hadn't exactly said the word freak; Tony's subconscious had embellished upon the conversation. Sitting out in the middle of no and where could do that to a man. With no gadgets to play with, no source of pleasant distraction, Tony Stark was staring boredom in the face.

"There are approximately six hundred twenty-two thousand, four hundred ninety-six blades of grass in this clearing, along with two million, four hundred, eighty-six thousand, one hundred seventy-five ants."

It wasn't as if Tony hadn't tried to remove the ants. He had electrical burns over part of his body to prove it. Shocking the ants hadn't helped really. Instead it sent the colony into frenzy. He had thought of trying to douse himself in some kind of explosive or fire bath; however with his gauntlets disassembled and one of his boots off it didn't seem like a wise option, even by Tony Stark's standards.

"They're coming in. I've got to get them off me before they get to the chest plate; Tony old boy you better come up with something or this will be your last tango."

Instead he had sent a distress call, ditched as much of his armor as he could and made the quarter mile run to the nearest stream in an attempt to wash off the ants that were on the chest plate. And it had worked surprisingly well. Now he was waiting for the pick-up team as he set off another series of flares.

"I guess it might be it this time. I feel faint. I need to stay awake, so I can put the helmet on before they get here; otherwise I might smother. I'll duck behind this tree when it's time to keep Iron Man's secret safe. The other Avengers don't need to know that their sponsor Tony Stark is under Iron Man's mask."

And so our hero, Iron Man, made it alive out of the rain forest with the help of his friends, The Avengers; for Tony Stark it was the longest three hours of his life.

 

The End.


End file.
